


What I Did What I Said (This Is A Battle)

by Krasimer



Series: Do Not Go Gentle [22]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asshole Caliborn, English fucked up, Everyone got brought into the new world, Gen, Humanstuck, Jack being Jack, Karkat gets shot, M/M, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, None of this makes sense without it, Read the rest of the series, Sort Of, The deaths aren't any of the good guys, The goddesses are angry, after the game, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12011538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasimer/pseuds/Krasimer
Summary: The plan: Get in, draw English out into the open, get him arrested if you can. Not the best of plans, but still easy to screw up.Your name is Erik and it used to be Eridan and you have no fucking clue how this is going to go.Your name is Nessa and they all had decided you were too young to be heavily involved in the fighting.==> BE SOMEONE ELSEJesus Christ, you think as you cuff blood awkwardly from the cut on your forehead. Could this get any worse?





	What I Did What I Said (This Is A Battle)

==>  **BE SOMEONE**

Your name is Erik and it used to be Eridan and you have no fucking clue how this is going to go.

English followed you out of the game somehow, hitched a ride on the code used to create the perfect world that the humans were allowed to make. The younger version of him did the same. There’s a sister involved and she used to be Calliope and from what you’ve heard of her, she is the nicest of the three. She comes across as a little strange, out-of-synch with the others, but she seems good.

You aren’t sure how well this is going to end.

Blood drips from your nose and you wipe it away hastily. Sollux is against your back – Samuel is against your back, his cane held at an angle and you can see how much he’s restraining himself out of the corner of your eyes.

English has minions.

Not the stupid yellow things that had taken over everything recently but dumbass people who work for him and seem to want you dead. One of them, seen earlier, had seemed familiar somehow, but you aren’t sure why.

One of the others has a weird, leathery cane and seems to be brandishing it.

You wish you knew where your brother and dad were, it would be easier to focus if you knew they were alright. The plan seems fucked but maybe the others are having more luck and you really hope they are because your bat is broken.

Fuck, but do you wish you could still pull magic from nothing.

One of English’s minions steps forward, his left eye covered in a patch, and it’s the one that seemed familiar from earlier. He stares at you for a moment, his lips curled into a frown, and you get the impression that he doesn’t smile often. “My name,” he starts, a hand to his chest. It’s covered in bandages and whatever happened looks painful. “Is Jack. I have a message from the goddamned goddesses.”

Well, that just makes everything a little bit more interesting.

 

==>  **BE SOMEONE ELSE**

Jesus Christ, you think as you cuff blood awkwardly from the cut on your forehead. Could this get any worse?

Of course, it could, you scold yourself immediately. You’re Vanessa. You used to be Vriska. The world you live in now seems to be made to prove you wrong. Teresa and you got separated a while back now, with her running off to find her sister. Latula had been injured somehow and Teresa had recognized her screaming.

It was understandable, but it also left you here, alone, to try and beat the woman working for English into a pulp.

She was good.

Every step she took, every hit she landed, there was no wasted movements. You had only recently taken up any sort of martial arts and you were still down a goddamned arm. The plan had seemed dangerous in the first place, even with how simple it was, but this was lethally stupid.

You hear your mom’s cackling laughter outside, followed by what sounded a bit like Gamzee’s honks, and you felt something in your gut solidify.

“Gotta follow the plan,” you mutter, falling back into a fighting-ready stance, hand held up to block. You could feel your eyes narrow, your pulse pounding in your wrist, your heart beating in your throat. You are too young to be fighting this battle, you think as she steps around you and watches you with her dark eyes. Whatever she thinks of you, whoever she thinks you are, how much she thinks she can beat you into the ground…You are a different person than the troll you once were.

“What plan would that be?” she asks, her voice steady.

It pisses you off. She’s not even sweating, not even slightly out of breath, and you’re looking like a puddly mess of sweat and probably closer to exhaustion than you want to admit. You don’t answer her.

She looks impressed.

“I have a message,” she says quietly, leaning back on one heel and crossing her arms over her chest. “For the goddesses.”

Well fuck.

“And?”

She laughs and you just want to be able to land a punch on her perfect fucking nose and make her shut up. “They need to hear this. You need to hear this. Your entire group needs to hear this.”

“Hear _what._ ”

“This,” she reveals a USB, held delicately between her first two fingers. “It’s a collection of all the information we have on _Lord English.”_

For all that you wanted to punch her before, you almost want to kiss her for the anger in her eyes and the mocking in her voice as she says his name. “Who is ‘ _We’_?” you ask as you relax your pose a little, remaining on guard.

Her smile goes vicious and you see the fire in her eyes go almost explosive.

 

==>  **MANY SIDES AND MANY PEOPLE. BE A DIFFERENT SOMEONE ELSE.**

Your name is Nessa and they all had decided you were too young to be heavily involved in the fighting.

You used to be Nepeta, one of the trolls just the same as they were, but now you are the youngest in the group, the one with the most adults deciding that they were in charge of your safety, and you had been left in the Makara’s van. Not really the Makaras anymore but it was a hard habit to break, thinking of them as they had been once you knew.

Tavros’s dad was supposed to be there with you but he had gone after Equius’s dad and left you and Equius alone in the van to watch over things. Radio channels and things and there were some radios that were silent now and you are worried.

Equius reaches over and takes your hand gently, squeezing for a moment before just holding.

The plan had seemed so simple.

Work together, keep English distracted by sending everyone in with weapons of some kind and allow the still-somehow-Godtier’d people to work their way into things. Rose and Dave and Jade and John and Roxy and Dirk and Jake and Jane.

All eight of them, still with powers and all with memories and the plan had seemed so simple.

Light and Time and Space and Breath.

Void and Heart and Hope and Life.

You have a moment to swallow a small whimper of fear, feeling all too unhappily familiarly like you were trapped in the vent again.

The door of the van opens a little and you turn to look at it, feeling braver than you thought you ever could. Even the moment of going up against Gamzee at his worst felt nothing like this. You slam your entire body weight against the door, catching their fingers in the latch and you wince a little at their scream.

It’s not one of your people. Your people are all wearing trackers and all of them are still out and dealing with English. This is someone else and you snarl in the back of your throat at the thought of someone sneaking away from the fighting to try and find you.

Not this time.

Not today.

Not ever again.

You think of your moms and your sister and you push against the door again, feeling it shake and clatter under your strength. You are not weak but they might be bigger.

Equius is against your side, adding his bulk to it, and the door stops shaking as much.

Something in the air snaps and you can feel your teeth clench harder than before, the air suddenly tasting different. It’s familiar too and you nearly crack your nose against the door of the van as you turn to try and identify it.

There is an intruder in the van.

“Well,” they say quietly, raising an eyebrow. “Looks like that still works.”

 

==>  **SOMEONE _ELSE._**

You want to be sick.

Goddesses and everyone else be damned, you want to be sick. You don’t want to move, you don’t want to breathe, you certainly don’t fucking want to be awake.

You used to be Karkat and now you’re Kivanc and you just took a fucking bullet to the gut.

You think they might be able to forgive you for sitting down for a minute, hands digging painfully into the flesh surrounding the new wound. Your aunt is a doctor, you know exactly where this could go if you let it.

You are not nearly as lucky as Vriska was. You didn’t get shot in the arm.

“ _Fuck,_ ” someone hisses out emphatically. You want to agree with them but you’re exhausted and bleeding and a _lot in pain._ You don’t really know why but you recognize the voice. “Shit, come on kid, don’t-“ a growled out series of curses almost makes you snort with laughter. “Fuck, you have gotta get up, kid!”

Laughter is a bad idea with a bullet in your stomach.

You might be in shock.

You try to meet their eyes and there’s only one to meet and you strain to think of why it looks familiar.

“You might remember me,” they mutter, pushing their hat away from their face. “From before. Familiar is from memories, kid. You and I did meet once. Well…I mean,” they lean back from you for a second and you realize their hands are pressed against the wound in your stomach. “We met a couple of times but you only met me once when it was a good thing.”

Hat and eye patch and dark hair and skin.

Familiar.

Your eyes close for a moment and they shake you with a shout. “Hey, don’t fall asleep on me kid, need you to survive. I don’t think I want to be around when the goddesses get involved in this fight.”

“Stop calling me a fucking kid,” you manage to grit out through your clenched teeth. You don’t know which of your three languages it comes out in, but they smile. You press against the wall behind you, thinking about what hurts, and you take a deep breath.

Breathe.

John.

You can’t die here.

“It’s Jack,” they say after a moment of you staring intensely at the wall. “We met and you freaked out over shared blood color.” He looks you up and down and sighs. “This is going to hurt you _lots._ Just hold on, don’t die, and we’ll get to safety. Already delivered my message to some of your friends. They’re just fuckin’ lucky that I recognized them and had seen you earlier. It’s how we knew they were here to keep English from doing the shit he wants to do.”

You’re going to ask so many questions later.

Right now, you just hold onto his shirt as he hoists you into his arms and takes off running.

 

==>  **BE SOMEONE CLOSER TO THE ACTION THAN THAT.**

How about being Meenah?

Yeah, that sounds about right. Trapped in a corner behind a table that is steadily getting smaller and more fractured because bullets are eating through it…

That sounds closer to the action, certainly.

Your hands tighten on the quarterstaff someone had found for you. You think it might have been Nekane, but you’re a little distracted right now. Your cover is falling apart and you’re worried about a bullet hitting you in the back of the head. ‘Lord English’ and his pretentious bullshit manor that makes your childhood home seem small and paltry by comparison, he can go fuck himself.

You’re about to call that exact thought out to him, out loud, because maybe it’ll piss him off enough to get him to stop shooting for a minute.

Something grabs your foot.

Inhaling out of shock and fear, you look down to see a short man halfway in the wall, tucking as close as he can to the floor. His legs are still in the darkness and his eyes are wide as he jerks his head back towards where he came from. For a moment, you hesitate, then decide to go with him. If it’s an attack, it’ll be better than a bullet to the head.

Or worse, considering what English did to your girlfriend’s mother.

You tuck down onto the floor and crawl after him, glad for enough space in the walls to bring your quarterstaff in. It has designs like your old trident on it, etched carefully into the wood.

You’ve grown attached to it.

When you get inside the wall, the short man slides the wall shut quietly and turns on a camping lantern sitting next to it, putting a finger to his mouth and waving for you to follow him again. When the noise of English’s gun dulls down to barely a whisper in the background, he turns to you and smiles. “My name is Carlton,” he tells you, “But most of my friends call me Clubs. My buddy Jack has been trying to get your friends to safety.”

“Is everyone alright?”

There is probably a lecture or three, old and nearly forgotten by you, from your mother about talking to and trusting strangers.

Clubs doesn’t seem to fit into any of the old lectures. He nods quickly, almost laughing. “You guys did really well!” he praises quietly. “No one dying right at the moment. One of yours got hit, but he’ll be alright.”

“Who?”

“…I don’t know his name, sorry,” Clubs shakes his head. “Jack found out he can still warp from place to place. He warned the youngest ones in the van, barely managed to keep them safe from one of ours. Hearts was being messed with in the head, tried to get in and attack them.”

Oh Goddesses, Nepeta and Equius.

“They’re okay though.” Clubs looks up at you, leading you around a corner. “I’m just getting the rest of you guys out of the manor. The fighting was good, good instinct, somewhat good plan…But we’re blowing it up. And really, a bunch of people who are usually innocent shouldn’t be involved in something like that.”

“Why was one of your guys attacking?”

“Because the _boss_ ,” he says it with almost enough sarcasm to rival you and you almost want to hug him for it. “Isn’t able to mess with heads anymore, but his kid is. Callaghan. Little shit.”

Voided session.

One player only, essentially trying to be the god of his own destiny.

Shit.

Clubs looks at you and you can see a question trying to leave him but he also seems to be holding it back. “What?”

“Do you know where Callista is?”

You do laugh this time, nodding quickly. “She decided to go and try to round up local police. She took her dad’s files and evidence to them, took recordings of his business deals and dirty dealing and money laundering. Right now, she’s probably in their office, drinking some hot tea and explaining everything to them, enough to get him in prison for the rest of his life.”

“Oh,” Clubs grins this time. “Good.”

“Any reason?”

“We’re all pretty fond of her,” another voice cuts in. “Clubs, got to keep moving, time’s running out.”

“Yessir, Diamonds, Sir!” Clubs salutes him and nods. “Get her out and I’ll go find the others?”

“Only about two more to find,” Diamonds grunts, then turns to you and sighs. “C’mon kid, time to get out of here. House is gonna blow, we don’t want to kill anyone we don’t have to.” He reaches out a hand to guide you forward in the dark when you stumble, Clubs’s light already fading into the distance. “Got it?”

Your ankle feels shaky, like it dislocated when you leaped out of the way of English’s bullets. “I think so,” you say anyway.

So, of course, you nearly collapse on your next step.

Diamonds grunts again and picks you up, holding you against his chest as he walks through the dark tunnels in the walls. He doesn’t say much and you just hold still. Something about him tells you that he has a short temper.

You would prefer to be out of the building when the explosives go off.

When you finally reach light and air, Diamonds carefully sets you down. “Look after Miss Callista, alright?” he looks down at you, adjusting his hat. “Always was the best of the family. Kind girl. Deserves to be happy.”

“I will,” you find yourself nodding.

He nods as well and opens the door behind you, nudging you gently out into the night air. Your mother is waiting there, worry worn on her face in a way she hasn’t done since Felicity broke her arm by falling out of a tree as a kid.

She takes you from him with a nod and a tight smile, pulling you against her and trembling.

“I’m alright, mom,” you mutter the words with no real heat behind them. Over her shoulder, you can see everyone else. You can see the rest of your pulled-together family, including the godtiers.

Aitor comes running over and picks you up in one arm, your mother in the other.

With the rest of the group, you can finally spot who isn’t there.

Carlos – Kurloz – and Cronus.

There is a tight roll in your gut and you feel sick.

 

==>  **BE ONE OF THE POSSIBLY-DOOMED**

Oh god, you are, aren’t you?

Cronus is standing next to you, his arm curled against his chest, and you want to scream at the unfairness of it. Mituna is out there somewhere, with his brother the last time you saw him. Safe, as far as you know.

That doesn’t help the worry you can feel. It is threatening to take over, to drive you into madness.

You curse a few times in Spanish.

Surprisingly, it does help you feel a little bit better.

Cronus looks at you, his eyes wide as blood drips past one of them. His head had gotten knocked against something at some point, he might have a concussion. You have a knife tucked into your pocket and what feels like a dislocated set of fingers. Possibly broken?

You’re not sure.

Hurts like a bitch, that is certain. You curse a few more times. Cronus has a broken wrist and there’s likely a fractured elbow in the mix, so he can’t be feeling much better than you. Probably feels worse, but he’s still moving.

You can hear the heavy thumping of English’s footsteps.

“And here I thought I would never get the chance to get revenge on my granddaughter,” a voice comes from around the corner, behind Cronus. You recognize it, even with the memories dim and feeling far away, and the ice dropping into your gut is the least of your concerns.

You grab Cronus and pull him with you as you turn on your heel and never let your back face the God who wants to kill you.

“I remember you, too,” he says, his voice soft. “You were there. You fought back against me then, too.” He laughs like it’s a joke, and you’ve never heard anything more horrifying. Raspy and malicious and your dad is a fucking cop and you’ve never heard anything more threatening.

He steps closer to you, his eyes glowing white and hollow.

He is your nightmares given form.

You used to have nightmares about the different timelines, how many ways you could have lost Kankri, how many times you could have lost Mituna. How many times and ways you _did_ lose Cronus as a friend. Your nightmares used to be about things like your moon blowing up in the events leading up to your death.

Nothing so mundane is what haunts your sleeping subconscious now.

“Congratulations,” he claps slowly and you can feel Cronus tensing up at your side. He lost his weapon ages ago and only has one good hand, but he feels like he is ready to jump into another fight. You bask, for just a moment, in the sheer stupidity of his bravado.

You could use some of that.

“On what?” Cronus demands. “Congratulations on getting in the house and pissing people off?”

“Oh yes, exactly that,” the God sneers and you can see some features in common with Tempest. The shape of his nose and the color of him, the shades of blue and purple that make up her wardrobe are shared by him. “For interfering as you always have. I made you cut yourself off once, _boy,_ ” his voice turns to a hiss and you step halfway in front of Cronus before you can stop yourself. “I can make you do it again.”

He turns to you and you feel your entire body start shaking.

You remember what he did to you.

What he made you do to yourself. The lies he fed you and everyone so that you not speaking seemed normal.

Seemed right.

“Oh, you remember too.” He smirks again and waves a hand, the doors that line the hallway slamming shut. “Good. Keeps me from having to explain it again. I took your tongue last time, child.”

A heat at your back makes you straighten up.

“Asshole,” you meet his eyes and for a moment you could swear you see the confusion. “You didn’t take everything from me.”

“I could fix that, you insolent brat!” his hand rises and you stare him down.

Strangely, you can feel a calm coming over you.

“And you,” comes a new voice, one you recognize with a great amount of joy. “Are _never_ going to _touch_ my Dreaming Moons again!”

Electricity follows, a bolt of lightning striking true at his heart.

Tempest and Memnanis.

Both of them, hand in hand, arrived just in time. Memnanis reaches out and puts her hand on your shoulder, offering a smile. You are one of hers, after all. Her influence reaches you far faster than Tempest’s does.

You feel warmth in your chest and you nod, just once, before you turn on your heel and grab Cronus’s good arm.

In between seconds, you are outside again.

Your father reaches you first and you let him hold onto you like you are a scared child once more.

It’s pretty accurate to how you feel right now. 

 

==>  **REMEMBER THAT ONE PART.**

Your name is Jack.

Or Spades Slick, if you go by the nicknames you and your crew gave each other a long time ago.

Once upon a time, you were involved in a mess that had several different versions of you spread out everywhere. One of those versions was mixed with a dog who had god-like powers. When you open your eyes to find yourself in a van, having lost track of Hearts. The man had undergone the mind-whammy bullshit of English’s kid.

You had to find him before he killed any of the invading group.

You recognized them and you felt a little nervous about that. The last time you had seen most of them had been when they were throwing around more power than was comfortable. As trolls.

Your life is weird.

But you open your eyes and find yourself in a van. There are two kids in it, both of them pressed against the door.

“Well,” you say quietly, an eyebrow finding a new home up near your hairline. “Looks like that still works.”

The girl looks like she wants to attack you, her courage wavering slightly but staying put. Good kid, lotta gumption. Her friend just looks like he wants to hit you, probably for freaking her out. Gumption there, too. If they were older, you’d extend a hand for them to join the Midnight Crew.

But first things first.

“Got a message,” you tell them, looking at the door. Hearts has got to be on the other side of it. They managed to keep him out? Good kids. “From the Goddesses.”

The girl perks up a little, her hand still in her pocket.

From the way she’s holding it, she has a knife. Smart kid. Still a lotta gumption. “They’re helping as much as they can,” you tell them. Important news, gotta spread it to every single ally currently on the map. “They’ve gotta deal with Her grandfather first, to be able to take out English. Won’t be too much longer now but you still gotta keep holding out.”

You reach into your bag and hand them the necklaces.

“Wear these and don’t take them off. There’s some chance things are gonna get hairy.”

They both take them and slide them on.

The boy speaks first, holding the girl close to him. “Who are you?”

Slight British accent, interesting. “My name is Spades,” you tell him. “Open the door? I’ve got a guy I have to tackle and fix. Someone did something to him.”

Surprisingly, they both back away and open the door.

 

**== >** **EARLIER**

You’re still Jack and right now your hands are covered in bandages.

Fuck but you are in a world of pain.

English had wanted to torment one of the Midnight Crew after his daughter had gone missing. You had stepped up to make sure that none of your boys were harmed. It’s what you do. You remember not doing it, before, and they all ended up dead.

One of the Felt had been late in coming back from looking for Callista because, it had turned out, he had been arrested. Something about recognizing someone, you hadn’t really listened. Snowman, the absolute doll that she is, had suggested that your crew would be less effective at retrieving the girl. Hers would be a better way of getting the daughter of the _boss_ back into the fold.

Even if you wanted to prove her wrong, you hadn’t at the time.

Callista deserved to be out and stay out. She wasn’t built for the mobster life style her father had cultivated. She was too kind for it.

So when Snowman’s crew hadn’t solved it, yours had been turned to. Each of your boys had refused to drag the girl back, stating that she would fight and they didn’t want to hurt her. English had gotten pissed about that and decided to take it out on them – In turn, on you.

“He is going to die,” Snowman’s voice is quiet, clear and calm. She steps forward. “I have made it a personal goal to see to it.”

You trust her about as far as an infant could throw her.

It ain’t far.

“Yeah?” You reach forward and pour yourself a shot of something that smells vaguely like gasoline. “And why is that?”

“I was asked to.” She comes to a stop next to your table and crosses her arms over her chest. “By someone I had thought lost to the centuries and millennia, someone I was certain was dead. She explained to me what is happening and how it is happening.”

Funny she should mention it.

The lady who ordered you around had blue hair that looked like water flowing down her back, dressed in blues and purples. Goddess of Derse, you’d known the moment she stepped into the room. “Right,” you jerk your chin at Snowman. “’Bout your height with your heels on, curvy chick with lot’sa hair?”

“You should show her more respect,” Snowman’s eyes flash dangerously. Good, you like danger sometimes.

It distracts from the nightmares.

“She told me that there was going to be a fight today,” you tell Snowman. “What’d she tell you?”

Snowman’s lips curl into a small smile. “Much the same. We’re supposed to look for those we recognize and help them in the ways we can. I was told to put aside old grudges and focus on a future that looks brighter.”

“Well,” your words are shot down as quickly as the person on the receiving end of the shot you just heard go off.

You exchange a glance with Snowman and then the both of you are rushing out of the room, towards the balcony. Down below is a large man holding his own against Diamonds and you know, you _know_ , that this is what the Goddess of Derse meant.

“C’mon,” you mutter to Snowman, doubling back. “Find the ones you recognize. Or the ones I recognize. Might be easier.”

You need some things from your room.

 

**== > LATER**

The kid is bleeding out.

Shit shit shit shit, the kid has a bullet to the gut and he is bleeding out and he seems like a far fucking cry from the one who was so excited to see blood the same color as his.

You manage to get your heart rate under control after a minute. “ _Fuck,_ ” you hiss the word out. It seems to make the kid want to laugh, which is a really bad reaction with a bullet in the gut. Best case scenario, he’s in a lot of pain for a long time. Worst case…

Well. 

“Shit, come on kid, don’t-” You can feel yourself practically growling and you push your hat back, trying to get a better look at him. “Fuck, you have gotta get up, kid!”

He glares at you, his dark eyes narrowed and his hair bright red. It oddly seems to be his natural color, going nicely with his darker skin. You’re really tan; he’s not a white person. Makes it a little harder for you, considering you know what white people look like when they’re bleeding out.

You don’t know what this kid is going to look like when he’s bleeding out and dying in front of you.

“You might remember me,” You say after a minute. “We met a couple of times but you only met me once when it was a good thing.” You were never in a good place when you were Jack Noir. You remember that now.

Gift of the Goddess apparently was somewhat of a torment as well, considering the memories you were given back.

The kid seems to be fading out of consciousness and you react on instinct, leaning forward and grabbing his shoulder roughly. You shake it, causing his eyes to snap back open and he looks _pissed._ “Hey, don’t fall asleep on me kid, need you to survive. I don’t think I want to be around when the goddesses get involved in this fight.”

“Stop calling me a fucking kid,” he snarls back.

Some hope for him yet, you decide as you grab him up and start moving out the door. If he’s angry and willing to fight back while bleeding out, he might just make it. Gut shots are never good and you have yet to see him move his feet. You’ve never heard of a clean shot to the gut, never heard of a bullet missing everything and just punching a hole straight through.

Goddesses and Gods, the kid is going to suffer.

“It’s Jack,” you tell him, trying almost desperately to get him to recognize you. “We met and you freaked out over shared blood color.” You have never seen someone so close to happy tears as you had that day. “This is going to hurt you _lots._ Just hold on, don’t die, and we’ll get to safety. Already delivered my message to some of your friends. They’re just fuckin’ lucky that I recognized them and had seen you earlier. It’s how we knew they were here to keep English from doing the shit he wants to do.”

“Good,” he rasps out, still clutching his hands to his stomach.

He must be in worlds of pain.

“Anyone I can deliver you to?” you ask him, marching down the hallway and looking carefully around corners.

His eyes close as his throat clenches and he tries to force words out. Going into shock, definitely. You’ve been shot enough to recognize the symptoms. “Aunt,” he finally manages. “Doctor. Or the blue idiot.”

Blue idiot?

“Blue idiot?”

“Fucker should be around here somewhere,” he mutters, his head lolling around to drop against your shoulder.

Shit, fuck, and hell.

“HEY!”

Goddesses save you from intensely focused young adults trying to fight a war and also keep near each other. “Yeah?” you turn around and spot the young man running towards you with a blue shirt on underneath a gray button shirt.

Oh.

The blue idiot.

Of course.

“Don’t touch him.” The kid manages to make it not be a question just in time, planting his feet and staring you down. There is fear in his eyes and a hammer in his hands and you almost want to laugh. Bravado, certainly. Stupidity, almost definitely.

Love, for a fact.

“He got shot,” you fill the other kid in. No sense in keeping that information to yourself. “I’m supposed to find either his aunt or the ‘blue idiot’. From your shirt, I’m guessing you’re that second one.”

He nods and his hair flops into his face. “I’m John,” he pushes the word out, hammer still in one hand as he rushes forward some more and comes to a halt next to the kid-dying-in-your-arms. “Kivanc?” he puts a hand on his shoulder and the next thing you know, it’s like you’ve licked a nine-volt battery and your entire body is the tongue.

The bleeding stops.

Kivanc breathes deeply, somewhat eased by whatever John just did.

Kids with fucking god powers. Of course. What else? What next?

Snowman renouncing her bitchy ways?

You nearly snort out loud at that one. “Here,” you offer Kivanc to John. “Help me get him out of here. My crew has this placed rigged to blow. No one we like should be left in it when it goes.”

John shoulders most of Kivanc’s weight, inspecting him with worry in his eyes.

God, you hope these kids are alright in the end.

  

**== >** **EVEN EARLIER**

Once a Spade, apparently always a Spade.

Or Spades, rather.

You can almost feel the beat-down you’re going to get later. English has been muttering about failure on the part of the Felt and your crew has other missions. You’re going to step in for your boys, not gonna let them get hurt.

You always do.

“You don’t have to,” a voice comes quietly from the hallway behind you.

When you turn around, there is a woman with blue hair. Her eyes are pinned on you, placid and unmoving. Her body arranges itself into a position of someone trying not to be a threat when they know they’re in a place where they would be considered one. “What?”

“He’s blustering around, like he wants to hurt someone,” she lifts her chin just slightly and you can see a sort of regality in it. “You don’t have to have it be you. Your crew is the one who denied going on his personal vendetta missions.”

There is something about the way she says it. 

It clicks for you, after a second. She doesn’t like him. “Yeah, I do,” you tell her. “Got no other choice. He’ll hurt them and I’m used to it. Been here for a good long while. I’m used to it.”

Her grin is just short of malicious and you recognize her anger. You know it very well, remember it from the deepest reaches of a moon you once lived on.

She had been pulled away but remnants of her remained.

Her kindness had been stripped out, the good of her and the softness of her, but her anger had remained. It had kept the sleeping Dreamers safe, for the most part. It had kept the one who was mostly-dead in the core safe and sound. It had fueled you, at times. Her anger had been the part left behind, sending her off balance.

You walk to her and take her hand before you kneel to the floor. “Goddess,” you breathe the word out, bowing your head over her hand.

“Spades,” she murmurs your name and you can feel a part of yourself wake up. The part of you that you try to ignore, the power-hungry part that screams for the death of anyone getting in your way, the part of you that demands payment in blood, it falls further away in her presence. “Jack,” she says your other name. “I have a job for you.”

Jobs are good.

“What it is?”

“There will be a fight. There will be my children involved,” her eyes flash and you meet them, still kneeling. Your loyalty lies with her, the one who nurtured your memories, the one whose moon you lived on. “I need you to help keep them alive.”

“What, not safe?”

Sadness for a moment and you almost feel guilty. “There will be injuries. Not even I can assure safety and health for all. But I can guarantee they will live.” She feels warm. She feels angry. She called them her children and you’re willing to bet that she will be a fiercely protective mother.

They are her Dreamers, after all.

She spent so much of herself keeping them alive before. Of course, she wouldn’t change.

“Your crew will ally with you,” she continues. “As will the Felt. I must go speak with the Black Queen after I speak with you. They belonged to my moon the same as you.” She smiles and drops down next to you. For the first time, you realize her feet are bare. “Spades,” her chin lifts again and you can feel anger and pride and so many other things snapping through the air around her. “Make sure they live. There will be ones you recognize, even with the changes that have come to them. They are trolls no longer, they do not have the same defenses as they once did.”

Soft squishy human versions of the trolls you once watched over.

The stupid idiots.

“The hell are they coming after English for, then?”

“Because he has done a great wrong to them,” her hands squeeze both of yours. “And he needs to die.”

Death for English means freedom for you and your crew.

“So…” you crack your neck and meet her eyes again. “What about wiring the mansion with explosives once they’ve got him distracted?”

The grin she gives you could frighten the pants off a man at fifty paces and make him shit himself at the same time. Good thing you’re made of stronger stuff.

“Precisely.”

 

**== >** **BE SOMEONE ELSE NOW. STOP BEING HIM.**

Alright then.

Your name is Brooke Quaid. Your nickname, codename, whatever you want to call it, is Snowman. As it was before.

When Lord English woke up, after the game the children were involved in, he had sought the Felt out. All of you, alive and well and working in various organizations around the world. He’d pulled you from New York. The insignificant bastard had hunted you down and dragged you all together.

You might still be angry about it.

You are also still angry at Jack Noir. Spades Slick, whatever he is called. He is, however, the lesser of your anger. English bears the brunt of your wrath, quiet and planned and calculated and waiting for the right moment. You had gotten free of him and the threat he represented.

An upset child with the drive to destroy the world.

And now he had the funding to do so, with a son who was an almost exact copy of him. Their personalities identically nasty and hateful. You would almost applaud it if it did not mean near-slavery for you and your crew.

Life after the game had brought surprises.

The children had fought and won and you had tried to destroy them but that is the past now. The present is Lord English’s manor under attack, his son distracted by some of your crew. One of the surprises was the goddess of Derse returning to the new world, put back together. Her anger had driven yours, in many different ways.

Another of the surprises was that you now had a brother.

Perhaps he was how English had found you.

After all, Doc Scratch being your sibling was bound to backfire on you somehow. Given the personalities of the two it involved, one looking for you and one having wanted you dead, you are not surprised at that part.

But having woken up to find out your previous indirect murderer was your older brother now?

That had been an interesting one.

You walk along the corridor, hearing the sounds of bullets ricocheting around the manor. Your cane taps the floor, one-two-three, in time with the heels of your boots. Your hallway is quiet except for you, one of the back ways around the manor. English employs more than just your crew and Jack’s, but the two crews are the ones he should be afraid of. Even you can admit that Jack and his three men are formidable in their own ways.

“Snowman,” comes a voice from behind you. Given the turn of events in your new life, you can recognize it.

“Dearest brother,” you greet him, still not turning around. Your hand clutches your cane, your eyes narrowing as you imagine looking at him right now. “Damien.”

“Brooke,” he snarls your name out and you want to laugh at him.

You can hear him fumble slightly on the gun he’s holding. He never was that good with weapons, despite the life he was involved with. Always more of a numbers and cryptic-messages and vague threats sort of person. He was the one sent in to threaten someone to get money paid for ‘Protection’. English had found a use for him and stuck to it. “You never were good with a gun,” you say quietly as you turn to look at him.

“Don’t have to be good,” he hisses out. His hands are shaking and you can tell it is anger that makes him tremble, not any sort of regret.

Good.

He may be your brother in this lifetime, but you will not show him any pity. He is the one who helped English find you again, after all. You grew tired of being a pawn a long time ago.

You were always meant to be a Queen.

With a small sigh, you stare him down and pull the top off your cane. It slides out smoothly, revealing the blade inside of it. You always keep it sharp, honed to a deadly edge, and you can see the light glimmering on it now. Damien stops for a moment, staring at it.

“You are going to die here,” you tell him solemnly.

When you lunge at him, his shot goes wide and lodges in the ceiling. Or maybe it goes through it. You aren’t sure. It is over in seconds, no drawn-out battle for the two of you. Your sword pushes in and then through, just the same as the ceiling and the bullet.

His breath is pushed out of him and you have time to meet his eyes before he goes limp.

A short death is the kindest you have ever been to your brother.

You pull away from him and take his gun, tucking it into the holster you wear on your hip at all times. Your own gun. He had stolen it in the scurry at the beginning of the night, waiting for a moment to hunt you down and try to kill you with your own weapon.

So you had taken to the back halls to lure him out and put an end to him.

Hunt the hunter and put an end to him.

You wipe his blood off your sword with his shirt and slide it away, hurrying to the next level of the house. The goddess had visited you as well and you had promised her that you would follow through on at least damaging English.

Even at their kindest, goddesses are still wrathful.

 

A floor up from where the corpse lays is a kid with red hair.

The bullet Damien shot off must have managed to make it through the floor and you speed past him. You have other worries right now. He might be one of English’s minions, he might be one of the ones attacking, but he is not your concern. You can hear Jack rushing up behind you anyway. You will let him handle it.

He is good with injuries, good with caring for people in stupid ways.

You have one goal in mind and you wish to accomplish it before the Midnight Crew blows up the manor. English was upstairs, last you saw.

You continue on and kick the door in, entering after the hail of gunfire ends. In the room is not English but Callaghan. The little brat who treated you, for so long, as if you were his personal slave. Your least favorite missions were carried out on his orders. The kidnapping of the father and son, the kidnapping of the two young men. One of them was blind and that wasn’t what had bothered you so much. What had bothered you was being left to carry him on your own while Callaghan had gone in further and used a baseball bat to smash the other over the head.

The little _brat._

“Snowman!” he screeches at you and you watch him, his white hair and his red eyes and you feel your upper lip curl back. “What, did you cause this bullshit to happen?” he jerks his hand towards the door, the sound of gunfire still ringing out.

“No,” your lips are still curled into a sneer but you can feel a faint twist of victory in it. He looks afraid of you.

Good.

“So what the fuck is happening, then? Did you sell us out, you stupid fucking bitch?” Callaghan probably played some role in the game, probably thinks he will reprise that role here and now, but he will not. You will not let him.

You won’t let him live past this day.

With a hum, you pull your gun out of the holster and put a bullet between his eyes. Twenty-six years old and already such a mess. You sneer at the second corpse you’ve made tonight and turn on your heel. See how English likes his family being taken from him.

Buried deep within you is a memory of a man and a young child and you shake it off.

What English took from you to recruit you isn’t important right now. Using the anger of it is. Without your anger, you will fall in this fight. You take a moment to breathe deeply and then you head back downstairs. If English isn’t here, then he will be down there somewhere.

Just a matter of finding him.

 

You do find him, cornering someone in one of the lower levels.

His face is an ugly red color and he is screaming about intruders and how they all deserve to die. The man lost what little sanity he had ages ago and you’ve been working for a mad man. The table he is shooting at is being ripped to pieces by the constant barrage. You are standing back far enough that he can’t see you.

But you can see the girl behind the table.

She is curled up and has her hands over her ears. Machine gun fire is loud, after all. Something aches inside of you, some long buried instinct, and you squash it down. From where you stand, you can also see the wall open. It’s one of the escape hatches English had built into the house, to keep his children safe if someone were to intrude.

Fucker thought he could keep his own safe while destroying others.

You make eye contact with one of the Midnight Crew. Clubs looks at you for a moment and shakes his head. You can almost hear him asking you not to reveal him to English and you nod back. You will let him go unnoticed for now.

He shuffles the girl into the walls and closes it behind her.

“Sir,” you say in the moment his gun runs out of ammo. “My crew cannot find your son.”

A little lie won’t hurt, not now.

English’s face drops and you almost want to laugh at him but you have spent nearly twenty years putting on a blank mask in front of him. You masterfully slide it back into place now and you face him. “Callaghan?” his voice is on the edge of a roar.

“Yes, sir,” you nod.

English curls one hand around his gun and goes past you, through the door and out into the open. Good. Might as well have a public viewing of what is about to happen. The others will need to know who is in charge.

You let him go.

He arrives in the manor entranceway, already snarling and snapping. The Midnight Crew is accounted for, with the exception of Clubs who is always late to everything anyway. The Felt are in attendance. The various henchpeople English has hired over the years are watching as well.

“English,” you catch his attention just as you slip your sword back out and jam it through his gut. Once, then twice, then a third time just to be certain. You catch his chin as he falls, his knees slamming against the ground. “You really should not have done the things you did,” you scoff at him, pulling your sword free and ramming it through his heart.

There are very few surprised faces in the hall as everyone stares at you.

“I run the Felt,” you announce steadily. “Lord English is dead. His crew is under the command of the Black Queen now,” you raise your chin as you pull your sword from the third corpse of the night. “You will work for me, I will earn your loyalty. Anyone who wishes to go may go, but if you speak a word of this, you will be dead before the next dawn breaks.”

“What about the Midnight Crew?” Spades’ voice is a half-growl. He has blood on his hands. “We aren’t English’s crew. It’s my crew.”

“I did say English’s crew was mine now,” you answer after a moment. You can feel the tension in the air. “I said nothing of the Midnight Crew. As far as I am concerned, they were never working for him. In fact, if they were to leave, I would assume they were never here. Leave the explosives, blow the building to hell, pick up your final pay tomorrow in a soon to be disclosed location.” You smile at him and some of your new crew step back from you. “Consider it a job for me.”

“Yes ma’am,” Spades salutes you and saunters off to find the rest of his crew.

You can show them this one kindness.

Both of you know that the future will hold nothing of the sort and you will try to kill each other then. This night, however, can hold a temporary peace.

Besides.

English’s fortune is not in this house. You alone are privy to the location of it. You will use it wisely.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, guess what.
> 
> There are only one or two more parts to this series. We're close to the end of everything about this story. We only have to hear from Feferi and Aradia and then we are done. I might combine the two, considering what I have planned for them.
> 
> But this story is almost over.
> 
> I kind of feel like mourning it, just a little. I've had fun writing it. Over the next week or two, I will be going back and editing some things about the older parts. Just basic things, like format that got screwy and the minor spelling errors that got past me. I am doing this all on my own, so sometimes things get weird.
> 
> Anyway: Hope you had fun reading this part. I hope you liked it. If you did, would you mind telling me? I like hearing from all of you.


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